I have some big fucking news for people who are as psyched for Star Trek Into Darkness as I am, guys: director J.J. Abrams has announced that there will be Klingons in the movie. How exciting! Unless you don’t care, in which case you think I just made up a nonsense word. My apologies to anyone who’s just semi-aware of Star Trek in general and is mostly here to ogle Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto or Zoe Saldana and Alice Eve, but this is really big news. There’s no shame in being here for pure ogling, but close your mouth for a second and wipe up some drool, because you should be excited about this.

Klingons are that race of humanoids from the Star Trek canon who have a ridge down the middle of their forehead like a stegosaurus. In later series like Next Generationand Deep Space Nine, the Klingons became allies to the Federation, even sometimes working on board the Starship Enterprise like Lieutenant Worf, but in the beginning they were purely villains, and that’s how they’ll be portrayed in this movie. According to J.J.:

“Their role in this is definitely that of adversary, and you’ll see how that plays out.”

Apparently the crew had shot some footage for the first movie that also contained the aliens, but it never made it to the film:

“We had shot some stuff that had Klingons in [the first film], and we cut the scene. It’s a deleted scene on the DVD. But they’re back in this one.”

In case you’re keeping track, this means that Benedict Cumberbatch will officially not be the only bad guy, which is good since we still don’t know who the eff he’s playing. But even if you haven’t been keeping track, don’t worry about it, because this movie is designed to be accessible to every level of Star Trek fan. In J.J.’s own words: “You don’t need to know any preexisting stories to enjoy this film”. Well that’s great and all, and definitely something that he excelled at with the first movie, but feel free to catch yourself up with some Next Generation or Voyager, everybody…if only so I don’t feel so goddamn nerdy over here all by myself.

So, does it make me a terrible person if I’ve totally skipped this whole star trek thing. I mean, I kinda have this bizarre crush on Benedict Cumberbatch, so I think I can do this. But, I where do I even start?

Alexis Rhiannon

With the 2009 movie and then the Next Generation movies! They’ll fill in the gaps!